cruciblenyu-blog

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#openingnight for us at the #provincetownplayhouse #theatre #arthurmiller #nyucrucible13 #nyu #crucible #arthurmiller #history #breaklegs #backstage (at Provincetown Playhouse)

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Judiciary committee #backstage #killinproctor #judges #nyucrucible13 #nyu #nyc #ig #igdaily #picoftheday #theatre #arthurmiller #provincetownplayhouse (at Provincetown Playhouse)

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Line notes at the end of rehearsal tonight. cruciblenyu.tumblr.com #crucible #nyucrucible13 #nyu #nyc #arthurmiller #rehearsal #provincetownplayhouse #actors #set #ig #igdaily #picoftheday #history #theatre #theatrearts (at Provincetown Playhouse)

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Proctor being split between Abby and Elizabeth in the park. #crucible #nyucrucible13 #nyu #washingtonsquarepark #wsp #arthurmiller #provincetownplayhouse #ig #igdaily #picoftheday #theatre #arts

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Meet our fair #poppet for #nyucrucible13. Here she sits with some of the cast behind her. #creepy enough for you?!? #nyu #nyc #crucible #arthurmiller #provincetownplayhouse #props #ig #igdaily #picoftheday #salem #salemwitchtrials (at Provincetown Playhouse)

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Meet Giles Corey and Mercy Lewis.... Hi! My name is Cara Arcuni, and I play two parts in The Crucible: Giles Corey, a cantankerous 80-something year-old; and Mercy Lewis, the fierce and unforgiving servant of the Putnam family who is a willing participant in the circle of accusing girls. Having these two roles is a unique challenge; Giles is a man, and Mercy is a girl. Giles is old, and Mercy is young. Giles is principled, and Mercy has none. But even in their history the two characters have an eerie tie. Although nothing in particular connects the characters in the play, in reality Mercy Lewis was the girl who accused Giles Corey of being a witch. Portraying these two characters is a challenge, and I hope the characters’ differences and similarities will show themselves in the way I imagine them. I feel in some way that it’s fate that I auditioned and was cast in The Crucible. Way back in history, on my paternal grandmother’s side, my ancestress Alse Young was the first woman ever executed for witchcraft in the thirteen Colonies. In addition, there’s a family tale (although unconfirmed as of yet) that one of my ancestors had a daughter who was one of the “possessed girls” in Salem. He was not amused, and took his daughter in hand. She stopped her involvement with Abigail, Mercy, and the rest of the girls. I’ve been performing for years, ever since I was about eight years old. I got my start in a small children’s theater in Los Angeles, where we learned all the parts in a short half-hour musical based on myths, fairy tales or some other children’s story. Each night of performances we switched parts. When I moved to Northern California, I continued performing in school and outside of school. I performed frequently in musicals and began taking classical voice lessons. It was in high school that I got my first taste of straight drama. I majored in Theater at Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. While there, I performed in musicals and straight plays. I am particularly proud of my work while there as Prospero, in a three-woman version of Sheakespeare’s The Tempest; as Margery, in Caryl Churchill’s Vinegar Tom (which is in many ways a feminist critique of The Crucible), as Wendla in Jonathan Franzen’s translation of Franz Wedekind’s Spring Awakening, and as Annabel Glick in Lucky Stiff. I am honored to be a part of this production, and I hope that you enjoy it as much as I’ve enjoyed working on this production.

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We hope your Valentine's Day was swell. Get ready to meet an onslaught of Crucible Characters. Hello everyone! My name is Jessie Delgado and I am ecstatic to be working with this wonderful cast in such a historical theatre space. I am a freshman in the undergraduate Educational Theatre program and The Crucible is my first mainstage production! I will be playing Susanna Walcott, Rebecca Nurse, Martha Corey, and Sarah Good; all attain different characteristics but, yet, all are living in a world that is crumbling right before their eyes. Prior to this experience, I had no knowledge of what The Crucible was. Today, I get to say that I am more informed about the time period and about the mentalities that people had in this era. It has been a thrilling experience to learn about this time in history through the rehearsal process. I’ve had a love for theatre since I was very young, but it wasn’t until I reached high school that I realized that I was actually in love with the theatre. My high school was a vocational school, so I had the opportunity to major in Musical Theatre. Those four years hold a lot of my favorite memories. Theatre has really helped with developing who I am; I learned about what it takes to put on a show, how to work with a big group of people with many, different personalities, and I learned a lot about myself. Shows like Cabaret, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Sweet Charity, Spring Awakening, Pinocchio, and Aladdin (Yeah, even the old Disney shows have taught me about myself) have influenced my life and have made me appreciate the theatre much more. These experiences have impacted me in extraordinary ways and now I want to be able to share these experiences with other people. This led me to discover the Educational Theatre program at NYU. Being here has been incredible so far and I cannot wait to find out what else the university has in store for me! I will be playing four different roles in this play and the most difficult part about creating these characters is finding out what exactly makes them distinct from one another and how I can accurately portray those differences. The research that I have done helps with figuring out how I can relate to each character and how I can bring them to life in my own special way. Susanna Walcott is a troubled young girl that stirs up a lot of trouble with the rest of the girls; Rebecca Nurse shows pride in her beliefs by standing by her principles; Martha Corey refuses to allow her family’s name be put to shame; and Sarah Good is the notorious, grimy beggar of Salem that has been accused of being a witch. I am excited to keep on discovering myself within these characters.

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"The wings! Her wings are spreading! Mary, please, don't, don't...! She's going to come down! She's walking the beam! Look out! She's coming down!" #arthurmiller #nyu #nyucrucible13 #ig #igdaily #rehearsal #theatre #picoftheday #scary #witch #witchtrials #saveus #blame (at Provincetown Playhouse)

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Meet Claire who plays Tituba and Judge Hathorne. Hello whoever is reading this post! My name is Shang-Ling Kuei, aka Claire. You can call me either Kuei (that’s how my Taiwanese friends nickname me) or Claire, I really don’t care. Oh, yes, I’m originally from Taiwan. I was in Taiwan until the summer of 2011, when I moved to New York in pursuing my master’s degree. I majored in Radio & Television in college and interned in the experimental theatre of my university. I was involved in five productions in the theatre and was acting in two of them. Can’t tell you their names because they are in Chinese, and they are all original student-written plays so they are neither famous nor important in theatre history, at all. J My major acting pieces after coming to NY were: mother in The Time of the Wolves, muse in Frida, and bug creature in Eaten Voices which won 5ooo dollars in the Thespis Theater Festival. I’m very excited to be part of The Crucible! In this production of The Crucible, I’m playing Tituba and Judge Hathorne. Because of my foreign background, I can relate to Tituba very well. She is the only foreign character in the play as I’m the only foreign actor in the production (Not that I have also been manipulated, too, y’know ;)). Tituba is an exotic force in the play, a character doomed to be sacrificed. As the actor who is playing her, I am eager to know her life. I want to know why she came with Reverend Parris to Massachusetts; how people view her in the village; and how people communicate with her. However, for the play’s sake, her background is not important at all. On the contrary, her personal life has to be almost invisible. It is her extremely insignificancy in the village that makes the manipulation towards her so powerful. And for Judge Hathorne, I am thrilled to play a male character. I’ve always wanted to challenge male roles and this is a perfect chance! Judge Hathorne as a character in the play is hard to be loved by others. He seems pretty robotic and merciless. To him, the law and the system are everything. He admires Danforth and wants to be like him one day. Other facts about me: I play tennis, and was in the school varsity. I love horror movies and fun stuff, especially zombies. I sing, and have once been in a rock’n’roll band in high school. Love writing. I write short novels, poems, and plays (most of them in Chinese). Check the link below if you’re interested (and good in Chinese). You are gonna have fun with us in The Crucible!!! Sisters’ Studio: http://luvsis.blogspot.com/

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The woods girls and Stage management lift Betty after her fainting spell in the woods. #nyucrucible13 #nyu #nyc #rehearsal #lifting #cheerskils #cheerleading #rehearsal #theatre #theatrearts #provincetownplayhouse #igdaily #ig #picoftheday (at Provincetown Playhouse)

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Meet Putnam // Cheever. In this NYU 2013 performance of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, I will be playing a few different roles, including the role of Thomas Putnam, a wealthy landowner out to take advantage of the fragile state of Salem, and the roles of the dynamic duo, Cheever and Willard, who have been combined, manipulated, and reformed to create the unstoppable and insatiable CHILLARD! Do be careful as you approach the strong and powerful Chillard, as he undoubtedly will wrestle you to the ground and bring you to justice. Although performing in any Arthur Miller play is a new experience for me, I have actually been performing on stage (some actual stages, some not so much) for many a year. At first as a mouse or a dog in pre-school performances and then moving into actual human roles in elementary school. My first lead role came when I was cast as Scrooge in The Christmas Carol, and that’s when I knew I was hooked to the stage. Enough of the stroll down Memory Lane…… More recently, my credentials include Salvation Road (Duffy), Hamlet (Claudius), The Comedy of Errors, and The History Boys. The result of playing these diverse yet equally challenging roles has given me the courage and confidence to tackle my roles in The Crucible, which has provided an added bonus of spending time with a talented and fun cast. Those rare times, when I am not prepping for The Crucible, I enjoy taking part in other activities around the New York University community. Besides staring people down in the library to lower their voices or arm wrestling RAs to gain faculty respect, I take part in various theatrical activities. I am the Vice President of The Uproar Theatre Corps, which is a Steinhardt club that serves to produce and inspire new creative works for students through play festivals, panels, and workshops. I also enjoy writing for Theatrix! and Instant Gratification’s 24-Hour Play Festival, a skill I developed in high school when I was asked to write a short play for the Winter Workshop, a night of one-act plays performed in a black box theatre. I continued this passion at NYU writing countless scenes, skits, and short screenplays. Dandelions for Angels, originally produced by Theatrix! in the spring, was recently published in Piper Theatre’s Smart Plays for Young Actors Vol. 1. I am currently co-writing and co-directing, with Jack Dod (Danforth), 300: The Musical for this year’s Theatrix!. By the way, you are all welcome to check out this epic Greek tragedy starting on March 29th. Contrary to what you must be thinking, I am not all about the theater; I do enjoy watching movies, old TV shows, the New York Yankees, and stand-up comedy. I also enjoy writing jokes, reading mob stories, going to bars where everybody knows my name, and playing Pac-Man (regular not Ms. Pac-Man. I just can’t get used to that board). If you are reading this and think, “Hey, this guy seems swell.” You might wish to follow me on Twitter. If so, sign in and find me @msantarelli2410. Trust me I’m hilarious, though I do re-tweet the Wall Street Journal more than any man should. Be sure to check with your parents before following me because I never censor myself in anyway. In any case, come out and see the show next month since we’re working long and hard to put on the best show possible. Enjoy The Crucible at NYU!

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Betty stirs from her "witched" state in Act I, Scene 1. http://cruciblenyu.tumblr.com/ #nyu #nyucrucible13 #nyc #rehearsal #crucible #arthurmiller #provincetownplayhouse #arts #art #theatre

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Meet Mel Ridgway who plays Betty Parris and Francis Nurse! Hello wonderful people of the Internet! My name is Mel Ridgway and I will be playing both Betty Parris and Francis Nurse in Steinhardt's spring production of The Crucible! I am a wee little fresh(wo)man in the undergraduate Educational Theatre program and this is my college stage debut! What better way to being my theatrical journey here than by performing in a classic show in a historical theater, the Provincetown Playhouse! I am beyond excited and grateful that I get the opportunity to be a part of an experience like this so early on in my career here at NYU! Before I came to the big city, I was living in a suburban town in central New Jersey called Middletown. It was there that I accidentally fell in love with theatre at the age of 8. One of my friends begged me to audition for a community theatre show with her so she could have a friend to hang out with at rehearsals. (Spoiler Alert: I got in.) Ever since that fateful day, I've been hopelessly devoted to the theatre (yes, that was the musical theatre geek in me making a Grease joke...). I continued to perform in community theatre shows for fun but it was in my sophomore year of high school after performing a scene from Angels in America in my Drama Workshop class that I realized this was what I wanted to do with my life. I performed all throughout high school in shows such as Rumors by Neil Simon (Claire Ganz), 42nd Street (Maggie) and The Rimers of Eldritch by Lanford Wilson (Wilma). I have also been in an improvisation troupe back home for three years now (shout out to my CBTITS!) along with some playwriting and directing on the side. Then somehow miraculously I got accepted into my dream school and the rest is history! Playing two characters on opposite side of this story has been an interesting experience. Betty, the youngest of the girls in the woods, especially intrigues me. Through some improvisation that the other girls and I have been performing in rehearsals, I have learned many new things about her. Although she does not have much to say (probably because she is unconscious for most of Act 1 Scene 1...) her impact on the situation is much larger than I originally thought. Yes, Abigail instigated the event and Tituba provided the cauldron, but it was Betty who was caught in the act by her father, Reverend Parris. But instead of silently owning up to her sins, she fainted and caused a scene around the entire town. She is the reason that night in the woods is known around Salem. But I still wonder, did Betty actually faint out of shock or did she make the decision to “faint” in order to avoid punishment? This is a question that I hope I will find an answer in future rehearsals. I look forward to discovering more about my characters in this exciting process and I cannot wait to see the final product of all of the hard work the cast and crew have been putting into this timeless show!

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Welcome back friends to The Crucible 2013. Today's rehearsal is brought to you by the letter B, as in blizzard. Luckily, all of us survived Nemo and have made it to the Provincetown this morning to continue our work with Arthur Miller. The weather outside may be frightful, however, the energy in our theatre is vibrating and reverberating throughout the cast. Our brief warm up game consisted of movement and tongue twisters to work the body as well as our diction: "Suzie, Suzie sitting in the shoe shine shop She shines and sits and sits and shines She shines and sits and sits and shines Suzie, Suzie sitting in the shoe shine shop" We then began the acting work of the day. Act II, Scene II was the subject of the morning. With the addition of set pieces, the blocking changed bit by bit and the actors came more to life within the heart of the trial. We saw yellow birds, felt a cold chill, and arrested anyone who questioned the authority of the court. "You are pulling down heaven, and raising up a whore." ~Arthur Miller

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Meet Deputy Governor Danforth: My name is Jack Dod, and I'm playing Deputy Governor Danforth. Danforth is a man of laws. He hasn't risen to his position in the government by following a skewed or muddled set of principles. He devotes himself to, interprets, and enforces the law, which is both the law of the state and God's law. He considers himself and others view him as an ethical and moral stalwart in a world that lacks men of principle. Living up to his parents' molding of a proper Puritan, his life's devotion is to keep God's peace through the law. He has been quite successful for many years, and has never doubted his own judgment for he speaks on behalf of the state, who speaks on behalf of the king, who speaks on behalf of God. It is not often that the Deputy Governor is in unfamiliar waters or in a position where his incredible mastery of language abandons him. But then again, it is not often witches have invaded God's peaceful people of Salem, Massachusetts. Where the Deputy Governor is a rock of tradition and purpose, I am a curious diver of many interests. In the theatre, I am an actor, writer, director, and sound designer. My acting credits include the role of Cliff Kozak in NYU's Program in Educational Theatre's main stage production of Salvation Road, Gerald/The Beast/Others in When Trees Fall, Posner in The History Boys, Saunders in Lend Me A Tenor, Juror #3 in Twelve Angry Men, and Aaron McKinney and others The Laramie Project. Writing credits include numerous short plays produced at NYU, primarily with the Uproar Theatre Corps and Theatrix!, and second prize overall in the 2009 Oregon Playwriting Contest. I am also in the process of adapting Craig Lesley's acclaimed novel, The Sky Fisherman, into a feature length screenplay. In addition, I write two online blog-plays. Both are line for line translations of Shakespeare's classics. The first is Bromeo and Juliet, which has involved me tapping into my inner bro and translating Shakespeare's poetry into bro-speak. The second is Hamlet the Hipster because Hamlet deserves to be made fun of like any other Williamsburg hipster. See the links below if you wish to read more about these endeavors. This spring, I am co-writing and co-directing an original musical with fellow Crucible cast mate Marco Santarelli. If you ever saw the movie 300 and thought it would be great as a musical, you're in luck, because we thought so too. 300: The Musical will premier with Theatrix! in late March. In April, Educational Theatre graduate students and I are writing, directing, and acting in a production of Fall's Changing Leaves (produced by the Uproar Theatre Corps). It is an original devised production that was formed in the course of one very crazy 48 hour period at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland under the direction of Declan Gorman. We are expanding and rewriting and bringing it to you in April. In terms of sound design, I started designing sound when I joined the team for The Triangle Project in the fall of 2011. I fell in love with the art after I built an explosion and burned down the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory all over again with sound. Past sound design credits include Yikes!, The Red Dress, Salvation Road, The Triangle Project, and I will be sound designing Wombat Theatre Company's production of No Exit in April. In addition to my theatrical pursuits, I teach playwriting, screenwriting, and drama to high school students at the Institute for Collaborative Education (a high school on the Lower East Side). I am also student teaching at Hunter College High School, teaching drama to seventh and eighth grade students. In the fall of 2011, I designed and taught an original playwriting curriculum to middle school and high school students at I.C.E. that resulted in five of their original one act plays being fully produced with NYU actors and directors at the Snapple Theare on Broadway. Playing the Deputy Governor has been an exciting and fun challenge for me. The role has forced me to grow a beard (or attempt it), reevaluate my acting and collaboration skills, and really strive for an excellence that has left me a stronger actor, designer, and communicator. Feel free to read Bromeo and Juliet and Hamlet the Hipster here: http://bromeoandjuliet.tumblr.com/ http://hamletthehipster.tumblr.com Artist profile including sound design portfolio samples: http://jackwdod.wix.com/jackdod Professional profile including resume and C.V. samples: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jackdod To follow on Twitter: @BlazingTheTrail

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Act II, Scene II. The Courtroom. #nyucrucible13 #nyu #justices #judges #trial #witchtrial #marywarren #proctor #arthurmiller #arts #rehearsal

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Morning warm up and theatre games. #provincetownplayhouse #nyucrucible13 #nyu #nyc #theatre #theatregames #ig #igdaily